RealClearWorld Articles

With only a month until Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, the Middle East is more chaotic than it has been in years. In early December, Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, as his regime in Syria collapsed. The western media has become focused on what this will mean for Turkey, the Kurds, and Russia. Meanwhile, Israel has launched barrages of airstrikes on military targets across Syria. While Syria is currently getting the lion’s share of attention, guiding American policy regarding Iran could be Trump’s most important strategic challenge in...

What comes after the politics of resentment, fear, and polarization? We’ve spent years diagnosing the ailments affecting Free Societies—our divisions and dysfunctions—but have come back empty-handed. We looked for solutions in policy debates and opinion polls but still missed the answer hiding in plain sight: Ukraine. This brave nation, its fearless people, and their righteous fight stand as a manifestation of freedom itself, proof that moral clarity still matters, virtue exists, and courage can confront tyranny. We’ve been caught in a spiral of introspection,...

Knauf, a German construction giant with a robust presence in the U.S., is reportedly negotiating the sale of its Russian business with Gazprombank—a state-owned Russian bank sanctioned by the U.S. and E.U. for financing Russia's war against Ukraine. Such a move, if verified, undermines the principles of international sanctions, and jeopardizes the integrity of Western efforts to counter Russian aggression. According to German investigative reports, Knauf has entered negotiations with Gazprombank to divest its Russian assets. Gazprombank—a financial...

In a move that signals India’s growing commitment to strengthen its own security, the country’s Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recently approved two new deals that will significantly enhance its defense capabilities. These deals include the construction of two nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) and the acquisition of 31 Predator drones (MQ-9B) from U.S. defense-contractor General Atomics. Both are smart strategic decisions that underscore India’s willingness to safeguard its interests, strengthen its capacity, and...

Donald Trump’s astounding return to the White House has the Middle East bracing for change. In Gaza, the West Bank, and beyond, Trump 2.0 could spark a major peace and reconstruction effort backed by regional Arab allies as part of a new series of Abraham Accords. In the year since the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel has effectively rendered Hamas dysfunctional as a fighting force and governance apparatus. Its recently concluded war in Lebanon drove Hezbollah into hiding. Meanwhile, Hamas and Hezbollah’s master – the Mullah regime in Iran...

[The following is based on remarks delivered by Koonin and Mills at an MIT Free Speech Alliance debate, which can be viewed here.] The climate change debate continues to rage. Though the science remains “unsettled,” what does seem settled is that President Trump will withdraw, again, from the now infamous Paris Climate Accords. Importantly, those accords are centered on pledges made to modify national energy policies. A decision to exit the Paris Accords is no mere gesture. The central fact for citizens everywhere is that putative “climate solutions” would deploy...

Russia’s 2015 military intervention in Syria was a bold assertion of its great power ambitions, rescuing Bashar al-Assad's regime and projecting influence in the Middle East. However, recent rebel advances and Assad’s sudden deposal threaten to isolate Russia’s Khmeimim airbase and Tartus naval facility, undermining both the practical and symbolic foundations of Moscow’s global power status. The fall of Assad promises to be a major blow to Russia, which is already bogged down in Ukraine. Its ramifications are likely to be felt across Moscow’s foreign policy,...

It is time for the US to shift from its long-standing position demanding North Korean denuclearization and embrace diplomacy underpinned by the framework of competitive strategies pioneered by Andrew Marshall, the founder and long-time leader of the Pentagon’s in-house think tank, the Office of Net Assessment. The Korean Peninsula has been riven with tensions since the end of World War II. Recently, North Korea has signaled a departure from its decades-long pursuit of reunification with South Korea. This shift, coupled with Pyongyang’s increasing military...

Star Trek, Star Wars, 2001: Space Odyssey and dozens of other sci-fi stories set in space have delighted us for decades. What’s really happening in space right now, though, should worry us. It is part of the great power competition that is going on across the world. What’s going on up there can no longer be divorced from terrestrial geopolitics, geo-economics and statecraft. So, as the UK Government works on its upcoming strategic defence review, which was launched by Prime Minister Keir Starmer with the aim to make Britain secure at home and...

It’s been nearly three weeks, and the media is still ablaze with politicians and journalists trying to make sense of the Amsterdam pogrom. Many of them are trying to minimize a calculated, violent attack against Israelis and Jews by providing context that, while important, does not absolve the rioters of Jew hatred. Amsterdam's mayor Femkle Halsema recently said that she “regrets” describing the event as a pogrom and expressed concern that the attack was politicized “to discriminate against Moroccan, Muslim residents.” Maybe Halsem’s concern about...

Chinese president Xi Jinping on Thursday celebrated the opening of a new port that his state-owned shipping company Cosco has built in the Peruvian fishing village of Chancay. The opening of the port marks the dawn of a dangerous new era in which China wields its commercial sea power to reshape the international order to Beijing’s design. China now dominates the construction, financing, and operation of the world’s commercial maritime logistics infrastructure network. China’s dominance spans land a sea, including shipbuilding, ship repair, ship-to-shore crane manufacturing...

A Fortuitous Confluence of Events Donald Trump’s foreign policy team is shaping up to be great news for Israel, the West, and the proper definition of America First.  The erosion of American interests under the Biden Administration means that Trump will return to office looking at a world very different from the one he handed over.  Israel is but one of many countries to find itself in a radically changed geopolitical position. On October 7, 2023, Iran chose to heat up its long-simmering cold war with Israel, initially by proxy but eventually directly.  Throughout that...

Having neutralized key leaders of Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel appears to be preparing its long-anticipated retaliation against the Islamic Republic itself. Although currently limiting attacks to military assets, many are still demanding that Israel show “restraint,” warning against “escalation” with Iran and its terrorist proxies, who have promised revenge, leaving many worried that Iran will attempt something drastic. Israel, however, appears to be ignoring Western leaders’...

Following retaliatory strikes on Iran, Israel has entered a new phase of escalation, marking a direct confrontation with Teheran.  The intensifying situation not only risks further destabilizing the region, but also forces the U.S. to become increasingly involved—more than it should be.  For instance, in the same month French President Emmanuel Macron called to halt offensive weapons deliveries to Israel, the Biden administration announced the deployment of 100 U.S. troops to operate the THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) system.  While Macron’s...

There is a push in the U.S. Congress to pass S.4741 Western Balkans Democracy Act, authored by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), as part of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act. The legislation comes at a critical time for democracy and governance in the Balkans, which, with U.S. support, must improve throughout the region for the countries to finally join the European Union (EU), thereby permanently stabilizing Europe’s Southeastern flank.   Accompanying this Congressional focus on the Western Balkans and the policies enshrined in the Western Balkans...

The cracks and fissures of Central Asia’s 19th-century Great Game power struggles and political instability remain hidden just below the surface of the region’s deserts. Occasionally, there is a small shift, but enough to allow long-forgotten problems to reveal themselves. Late last month, a Great Game-styled clandestine plot with a potentially destabilizing force occurred in Uzbekistan. Gunmen failed in their assassination attempt against a top national figure in Uzbekistan, Komil Allamjonov, a vocal, pro-democracy reformer, advocate for freedom of speech and the...

Last month, Georgia held its parliamentary election. Over 50 percent of eligible voters participated in the electoral process in Georgia, and thousands of members of the Georgian diaspora cast their ballots as well. According to independent exit polls, the opposition movement and political parties that favored closer ties with the European Union had won the election. Many Georgians celebrated, but Georgian Dream, the ruling party in the Georgian parliament, made a different announcement. Instead of conceding the election, the current ruling party in Georgian parliament announced it had won....

“Congratulations President-elect Donald Trump on your historic election,” British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer posted on X at 3:21am ET on Wednesday. The best that can be said about this tepid concession is that Starmer got his concession in before Kamala Harris. Make no mistake. This is not the result Labour wanted. Starmer’s Labour party was heavily invested in a Harris win and did everything it could to bring it about. On July 4, Starmer won a landslide majority in the House of Commons with the lowest share of the popular vote (33.7 percent) for a winning party since...

If Donald Trump wins the election on Tuesday, he will encounter a Europe far different from the one he knew during his first term both in terms of personnel and policy. A second Trump term could very well be a baptism by fire for new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. After a decade of leadership by Jens Stoltenberg, whom some regarded as a Trump whisperer, NATO has turned to a leader known for being a quiet builder of consensus. The G7 has also seen significant turnover. Think back to the infamous photo from the 2018 summit, wherein German Chancellor Angela Merkel is leaning on a table...